Romeo and Juliette Syndrome
by sinnthetic
Summary: Roxas hates his high school and the kids that feels the need to beat on him for no reason; not to mention his weirdo cousins are in town with shenanigans of their own. RoxasAxel and about 19 other pairings.
1. Chapter 1

The bell echoed the hallways and insides of classrooms as several late students stumbled into class, and everyone who wasn't seated shuffled towards their chairs with minimal enthusiasm…the problem kids. The kids the teachers tended to glare at, even when they weren't doing anything particularly wrong.

In this case, it was a third hour English class, in which the late students were two tall lanking figures. The first, A blonde mohawked boy that was wearing black pants slightly too tight, followed by a slightly shorter boy wearing a zip-up 'As I lay Dying' hoodie with the so named hood covering his head.

The teacher eyed them suspiciously like they'd killed her puppy during those two minutes they were late to class, but said nothing as she marked them late on the attendance sheet. She wasn't paid enough to put up with these idiots…at least; that's what her psychiatrist told her.

"Everyone take out their copies of Romeo and Juliette, we're getting right into it today." The old woman cawed, taking short strides up to the front podium, eyeing everyone from over her cat eye glasses. The sound of zippers unzipping and papers being ruffled about followed, quiet conversations being started as books were drawn from various compartments.

Her eyes however, settled on the pair in the back.

"You two!" she snapped, her attention quickly adjusting to them, noticing neither of them had shifted at all. The one with the hood had his head down and had seemingly fell into a light slumber, judging by the noises he was making, and the blonde was unenthusiastically propping his head up with his palm.

"Get your books out NOW!" she snapped, glaring at them furiously before turning away.

The blonde grunted and began digging through is bag without much effort for a book…what book; he wasn't entirely sure.

Across the room, another pair were watching the two in the back off handedly as a bad source of entertainment waiting for class to start.

"What's their problem?" The one on the left said, not doing anything besides voicing his thoughts.

On his right was Roxas; who glanced back, not expecting to see anything interesting. He knew the boy with the Mohawk – Demyx. The only reason he really knew him was due to the fact he'd shoved him in the hallway and called him a preppy piece of shit, but hey. He still knew him.

"I hate punk kids." His friend Hayner muttered, opening the tattered red book he pulled out of his bag, fingering the edges of the old book. "Those idiots shouldn't even be in this class, they just failed it last semester because they skipped all the time."

"We skip a lot too, Hayner." Roxas said, the comment not registering much of a point besides the fact it was _true. _

"You trying to defend them or something?" Hayner said, shooting him a suspicious glance in between page flicks.

"Course not." Roxas said, almost sarcastically. Because fuck trying to get along, we're going to stereotype them and LIVE by that, damnit.

The teacher began talking about how the human psyche worked, and once you fall in love with someone, it turns into _infatuation, _and the majority of your thought process is devoted to the person, causing you to do idiotic things…yadda yadda, idiotic spur of the moment decisions, yadda yadda, people die, yadda yadda.

Yadda fuckin' yadda yadda. The word didn't even make sense anymore.

Though, his intelligent thought process was broken by a loud thud and a short bit of laughter. The majority of the class turned around in time to see Axel fall out of his chair with the English book over his head, Demyx still firmly planted in his chair giggling.

"MISTER AXEL, MISTER NOCTURNE WOULD YOU PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!"

Axel rose from the ground, a thin layer of black eyeliner visible under his green eyes, blood red locks falling over his face dramatically as his raised his head to take the hood off and plop back down in his chair.

"Apologies, Miss." He said, very quietly. "Fell over trying to get into my bag, no need to yell." Axel said, the slightest of smiles on his face. The teacher narrowed her drawn on eyebrows; considering scolding him for sleeping and being a moron, but changed her mind when the fat kid in row three raises his hand to ask to read the Romeo monologue on page thirteen.

Thank you, fat kid. Your spoils have not gone unnoticed.

Demyx glared at his friend once the teacher took her attention away. "You're a bitch, you know that?" He snapped. "You just have to smile at someone and you get away with everything."

Axel grinned him. "What can I say? I'm beautiful." He pulled the hood back up over his head, and thumbed through the pages of the book in front of him until he reached a relatively familiar page and prepared to lean over again when Demyx nudged him in the arm.

"Dude." He murmured, glancing across the room. "One of those preppy fucks." He added with a hint of extra disgust. Axel looked in the general direction Demyx had motioned in, and sure enough, after a moment, the scrawny blonde 'preppy fuck' boy had glanced at him briefly, but apparently upon noticing he was looking back, turned away rather quickly.

Axel shifted back in his seat to find Demyx grinning at him. "He likes you." Demyx said, in a low singsong voice, trying to avoid getting caught, as the teacher drilled on about how Romeo probably had ADD. Axel grunted at the comment, rolling his eyes.

"He's probably looking at _you._" He said, unenthusiastically. "Those preppy kids have a thing for Mohawks."

"Oh, but he's _so _cute." Demyx said sarcastically, twining his hands together and pressing them against his face. Axel laughed, at a lack of anything else to do or any insult to come up with, thus laying his face in his arms again, preparing to doze off.

The next half hour went like any other class hour—Axel slept and narrowly avoided getting in trouble where as his counterpart was acutely paying attention ("I'm failing this class you douche bag, don't make fun of me for reading the stupid play.") up until the last five minutes.

"What're you doing tonight?" Demyx muttered, nudging

"Not having sex with you?" Axel said drowsily, half lifting his head to cock his eyebrow at Demyx, who rolled his eyes in return.

"I get drunk and kiss Marluxia _once _and I don't live it down." Demyx snarled. "I'm not gay."

"You were making out with him." Axel said, deadpan. It was true. Saix took pictures.

"In my defense? It's Marluxia. Everyone's made out with him. Probably even your Mom."

"You leave my Mom out of this."

"Anyway." Demyx said, before Axel could say anything else, mostly anything sarcastic and witty. "We're crashing a party tonight."

"Crashing?"

"Mooching booze until they notice we're there." Demyx admitted half shrugging, noticing the time and began to pick up his things. "And then we wreak some fucking havoc."

Axel cocked his eyebrow. "So I take it that it's the party at the football players' house if you intend on 'wreaking pure fucking havoc' once your noticed." Axel said, almost sarcastically. He really was getting sick of the little clique wars that had been going on since they were in middle school.

But hey, he got to punch that dick face Lacrosse player Riku in the face and get away with it. Everything worked out for the best.

"Come on, just think about it."

Axel seriously considered his options. What else would he be doing tonight? It was Friday, and Friday meant his little sister was going to be watching 'The OC County' or whatever with her other little friends, and...he was-

Wait. He didn't _have _a social life. Right.

"Who's we?" Axel asked, simply to be cautious. By now, the entire room had packed their bags and were standing up in expectation for the bell, which was going to ring in exactly two minutes, forty three, two, one, seconds.

"Mmmpfh."

"Who?"

"Marluxia." Deymx said, glaring at him. "And Xigbar. And Zexion, if we can convince him." He said, giving him a hopeful smile. Axel really didn't care much for Xigbar; who wore an eye-patch and had a giant scar over his left cheek thanks to a fight that he got into. But all the little punk girlies thought the eye-patch was pretty hardcore, so he didn't complain.

But, it wasn't 'disliking him' so much as hating him.

With a passion.

A fiery one at that.

"Fine, whatever." Axel muttered, just as the bell rang. He waved carelessly as he moved to leave the room, moving along with a wave of other kids. "See ya later fag."

Demyx grunted. He hated his friend sometimes. He began pacing out of the room, mixing in with the crowd and something small and blonde bumped into him.

"Watch out asshole." Demyx snarled.

"Er. Sorry?" Roxas replied, cocking an eyebrow at him before turning back around and continuing on his way.

But Demyx wasn't satisfied with that. "You sure have a mouth on you kid. Bet your boyfriend _loves_ that." Roxas stared at him blankly.

'These punk kids use any given excuse to pick fights' Roxas thought, before settling on the classic—flipping him off – before shifting back into the crowd and walking off.

Demyx growled, he hated preppy kids.

"Was that the guy in our English class?" Hayner asked, once Roxas had caught back up with him through the swirling mass of students rushing to their lockers, next class or to void their pathetic teenage bladders.

"Yes." Roxas said shortly. "Yes, it was. You goin' to the party tonight?"

"Of course." Hayner said, grinning and giving him a thumbs up. "See ya there?"

"of course." Roxas replied with a half smile before heading in the opposite direction.

Axel was grinning; and leaning against a nearby row of lockers. Tonight was going to be more interesting than he had thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Axel was in Demyx's car (which was going twenty miles over the speed limit) across town at seven thirty that evening, much to his dislike. Mostly against his dislike because Demyx's car smelt like cheese, and he was sleeping when the mohawked boy was throwing rocks at his window and telling him to "get his scrawny ass downstairs before I come up there and rape you."

Axel found his friend made a lot of sexual innuendos towards him for being as heterosexual as he claimed.

They stopped off at Zexion's to pick him up – Axel was surprised the kid could see anything behind the massive wave of emo hair he'd given himself…but didn't complain. He was quiet. Axel liked quiet.

Which was _exactly_ why he was going to a high school party. Gah.

He made a mental note to his Demyx (hard) for exploiting his weakness of not having a life, and a very small part of his mind wondered if he should have just stayed home and watched 'The Orange OOC' or whatever with his sister.

The party was already pretty packed.

It was at the quarterbacks house; which was the biggest house in the biggest neighborhood, home to the biggest dicks in the town. Roxas honestly didn't know how he'd gotten invited, and hated the prospect of social activity.

But that dick lacrosse player Riku had gotten punched in the face at the last one, so he wasn't exactly complaining. Roxas didn't exactly hate the guy, but he did have an arrogance problem, but that's a little something that 'pull the stick out of your ass' surgery couldn't fix.

Approaching the house, Hayner began striking up conversation with everything that _moved. _"Oh hey man, what's up?" "Olette, hey! Haven't seen you in a while!" "Dude, it's been too long, we need to hang out or something." Roxas didn't like this, because Roxas only liked Hayner – all his other friends honestly sucked.

He was occasionally brought into the conversation as "my friend Roxas" or "hey, you remember him, right? No? We've been going to school together for three years…" But Roxas didn't honestly care. He was bored, he was hungry, and was hoping a fight would start tonight. Bloody noses were his form of late night entertainment – fuck you, Jay Leno. Fuck you.

It was then that another car pulled up – it wasn't anything horribly out of the ordinary, several other cars had come in the last few minutes but it was one of those cars that just gave off a bad vibe.

Or maybe Roxas was getting drunk off of fumes.

His suspicion was caught to the full when three boys stepped out of the vehicle. Two, he recognized at the boys from his English class. The third he didn't know, but one this was for sure; they weren't here to have tea and have a swell old time.

The 'clique war' as everyone called it had been going on for the groups since the end of elementary school. Someone shoved someone, took someone's lunch money and called them a 'corporate whore' (even though they didn't exactly know what it meant). Over the years, the half with rich parents and nice cars became the preppie kids that only wore expensive clothes and every second of their spare time was devoted to sports. The other half evolved into the problem kids – the punk and emo's that listened to music that pissed everyone off and did what they could to start fights and start problems, and wore clothes that questioned ethics and sometimes sexuality. Both sides acted on the stereotypes that in other schools; really weren't a big deal.

Roxas would never admit it, but he found eyeliner on guys wicked hot. He tried doing it to himself once, but poked himself in the eye with the applicator several times, and just ended up looking like a retarded drag queen.

But that was another story, and several of the party crashers stepped away from the vehicle, approaching the crowd smoothly, like they really _were _going to sit and have tea.

Roxas then flinched as the three got closer and facial profiles came into tact– that Demyx kid wasn't very fond of him.

He turned to get Hayner's attention to suggest going inside, but his friend was nowhere to be found. Oh shit.

Though, they stopped several steps short of him, Demyx mouthing what looked like 'split up'. Almost like they were covert officers in some delicate operation, they each moved in opposite directions. But of course it was the usual maneuver the group followed; they split up and threaded through the party until enough of the group showed up to do a fair amount of damage and get away with it. It was their oldest tactic in the book.

He watched the silver emo-bang boy head in the direction of the house itself, the Axel kid head towards the garage. And Demyx – Demyx was still headed right at him.

Oh, double shit.

"Hey bitch." Demyx growled, approaching him. He stopped several feet short of him, staring down at the boy with folded arms. He was about two heads taller than him. But, Roxas stood his ground. He could usually get out of these situations with words – he was clever; he admitted it. If not, he was a pretty quick runner.

"Hello." Roxas said calmly, smiling up at him. "How's it going in fuck face land? I hear the weather is nice this time of year."

Demyx scoffed at him. He didn't want to get into a bitch fight with a kid that was a grade lower than him. But, it looked like this was the only mouse he had to smack around until Marluxia and Xigbar arrived. This kid was so scrawny; it looked like he'd pass out from a decking in the nose anyway.

"Actually, it's wonderful." Demyx replied, carefully rubbing one of his fists into the opposite palm. "Why don't I send you back?"

"Big words from a guy whose hair looks like it got fucked by a toaster."

Roxas blinked at what he just said, where as a look of total rage crossed Demyx's face. "You're gonna Pay for that you little son of a bitch!"

And this is where the running came in. Demyx lunged at him, but only ended up punching his shoulder as Roxas jumped away, threading himself through the people gathered on the lawn. Hard as he tried, Demyx only succeeding into running into several people – who happened to _not _be Roxas – and lost him after about a minute of scrambling around.

He sighed, figuring that's what he got for trying to start shit so early on, and maneuvered away, figuring he might as well go find some beer.

Axel, was bored.

Demyx reminded him not to start any fights until the others arrived…and Axel reminded him he never got _involved _in anything, just sat back and watched and occasionally placed bets.

Right now he was sitting on the side of the structure, opposite the garage in the shadow of the house, shoving a cigarette in his mouth and began patting his pockets for a lighter.

Upon successfully digging one out of his hoodie pocket (along with a receipt for an energy soda, three broken toothpicks and a dead battery) he lit it, inhaled, and let his head droop; lungs full of delicious nicotine. Mmm. Cancer.

Just as he balanced his arm on a knee that was pressed to his chest and slowly began to exhale, he felt something hit him in the side – hard.

He looked up in time to see that scrawny blonde kid from his English class fall on the ground. Axel snickered lightly as Roxas tried sitting up, but his hands slipped in the grass, causing him to slip again.

Axel broke down into a fit of light chuckles, smoke coming out his nose in short bursts. Roxas thought he looked like a dragon, with the hood and the smoke and what not…that was probably the fumes talking again.

"Er, I'm really _really _sorry, I was-" Roxas began sputtering, shaking and out of breath, but noticed Axel was shaking.

He was laughing.

"Are you okay?" Axel wheezed out between spurts of laughter.

Roxas blinked. The 'As I lay Dying' eyeliner-bearing red-haired boy just asked him if he was okay, and he was _laughing. _ "Er. I'm alright, are you?"

"Fine." Axel said, a giant grin still sprawled on his face as he took another drag from the cigarette. He closed his eyes and let the smoke mingle in his body for a moment before he spoke again. "What're you running for?"

"Some kid was chasing me." Roxas said, his eyes getting a little wide realizing that he _was _in fact running away from someone. "I er- gotta –"

"FOUND YOU!"

Demyx came out of absolutely nowhere, Roxas dodged out of the way just in time for Demyx to ram into the fence opposite the wall, taking only a second to regain himself before raising his fist and –

"Calm the fuck down, Dem."

Demyx blinked, taking him a moment to register that the person talking to him was none other than his best-back-stabbing-son-of-a-bitch-ameigo Axel, who was sitting on the ground, staring at the fence half lidded with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth.

"He-"

"You said something, he said something back. You said something equally witty, and he made fun of your hair?" Axel said, deadpan, raising his eyes to give him an unconvinced look. Well, it was usually how this started; not like it was the first time. Demyx glared at him.

"What the fuck is wrong with my hair!"

Axel groaned. "Just go. Kick his ass later; you're the one that told _me _not to get into any fights until later."

"But-"

"Kick the shit out of him after Xigbar and Marluxia get here." Axel said dully. "Until then, let him wet himself with fear."

Roxas twitched slightly at these words. So much for Mr. Nice guy. Demyx glanced from Axel to him, to Axel again.

"You're in for it later, fuck-nut." Demyx snarled, and walked off, slightly pouting.

An awkward quiet passed between the two as Axel finished off the cigarette, dropped it and mashed it into the grass. More silence; Roxas couldn't bring himself to walk away and just stared at his shoes. He honestly liked being in the presence of a kid from behind enemy lines and not being pummeled. "I didn't mean it."

Roxas blinked, raising his head to meet Axel's stare. "Er. What?"

"I know you aren't wetting yourself with fear, and I would prefer it if he didn't beat you up." Axel said dully. "He's an airhead. Say shit like that to him and he'll calm down."

"I noticed." Roxas said offhandedly, scratching the back of his head. "So. Er. Thanks."

"Just doin' my job." Axel said, standing up. He took off the hood, the same dramatic effect happening – his long spikey hair falling out of the confines of the sweater, the red locks having a particularly powerful effect in the darkness. The darkness around his eyes signified that yes, much to Roxas' approval he was still wearing eyeliner. Roxas kept telling himself he didn't like guys, despite the fact part of him just jumped and went "LYKE OHMIGOD, HES HOT" teenage girl mode…but just a little bit.

Axel smiled breifly at him before turning to walk away. "See ya around." Roxas waved lightly watching him step into the light of the front lawn. For a breif moment it cast the most beautiful look across his face like he was an angel or --

But at that moment his face faltered, looking disappointed and angry all at once. "Fuck." He murmured, heaving a sigh. Or it might have been the supression of the urge to punch something. Hard.

Marluxia and Xigbar had arrived. They were standing in the lawn with Demyx and they were looking in the general direction of where Axel and Roxas were standing.

'Let the shit faced acts of idiocy begin.' Axel thought, and pulled up his hood once again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer I probably should have put in the first chapter:** I don't approve of stereotyping. I think it's stupid and immature, and it's rare to find my person using these 'prep' or 'punk' terms in seriousness. People are too complex to sum up into words and categorize into groups. :D

If you're keeping up to date on this via lj, I'm sorry this is taking so long. I love you guys. Really.

SHUTTING UP NOW. FICCAGE.

* * *

The party had arrived.

Axel groaned, glancing back at Roxas, and then back to his newly arrived friends.

Xigbar had his hair drawn back into a ponytail, looking rather average compared to Marluxia, who was wearing several studded bracelets on each arm, a 'Between The Buried and Me' shirt, two belts and some giant ass boots.

'Congratulations, you are the God of the punk ass mother fuckers that will inevitably grow up and work at Walmart' Axel thought, rolling his eyes. The kid was flamboyant, admittedly. Axel honestly thought he looked like something the 80's threw up with his giant hair, and had intentions of shaving it off the next time he got drunk and passed out on him…Axel involuntarily shivered at the memory.

But now, he had two options. He could stay in the background until they started some shit, or he could help them start the previously mentioned shit.

It was then that Demyx glanced in Axels general direction, pointed and mouthed some words that looked rather obscene, not looking to happy. He then pointed at his Mohawk.

Axel groaned again. His options had just been kicked in the face.

It was down to do the right thing, or don't. But then again, that all depended on what your definition of 'right' and 'wrong'. It was save the preppy kids butt or to watch him get the shit kicked out of him.

But, this preppy kid seemed anti-social and panicky, awkward, and weird. Axel grinned a little to himself. Honestly? He didn't seem too bad.

"Roxas." Axel said, still looking the general direction of the boys that were now headed in their direction. Roxas perked his head, slightly shocked that Axel even knew his name.

"Yeah?"

"Run."

Roxas blinked, and unintentionally cocked his head. "Er, what?"

Axel sighed, and calmly walked over to him and leaned down so they were eyelevel. "Do you want your sorry ass kicked six ways to Sunday by a group of guys that make up for their tiny dick size by beating on kids like you?" he said very even toned, almost bored sounding. They were several feet apart, but Roxas could still register the smoke on his breath and the light ring of black under his green eyes.

Roxas liked the smell of smoke. Roxas liked eyeliner.

The only words he really heard in the sentence were 'do you want your ass kicked' and 'tiny dick' due to the distraction, but none the less voiced a rather appalled "No?"

In an instant, Axel had his hand wrapped around Roxas' upper arm, and was running towards the back of the house, dragging a tripping Roxas behind him.

They reached the back of the house just as they heard Demyx's voice shouting "Where the fuck is he!" coming from the area they had just gotten away from. It was followed by hushed speaking from Xigbar and the others, in which time Axel used to plan his next move (Their next mood – whatever). Axel observed the surroundings briefly – there were people here, lingering around the sliding glass backdoor to the house.

'Just what they want' Axel thought, frowning. 'An audience.' Roxas glanced behind them, looking rather frightened. "Axel, they-"

"Come on." Axel muttered, pulling an unsuspecting Roxas into the house, running through a group of people who were talking about The Fall Out Boys (or whatever) who needless to say, weren't too happy with him. One kid was even bold enough (or drunk enough) to attempt throwing a cup at them (and missed, hitting another kid).

Axel laughed at the gesture (resisting the urge to flip the kid off, they were on the run after all) as he shoved their way through a group in the living room ('these kids clump together like bad kitty litter' Axel thought, slightly disappointed by his own idiotic analogy), and quickly glanced around for a place to hide. His eyes landed on a nearby hallway where three girls were lingering, which Axel instinctively dashed for, once again pulling Roxas out of a second long frightened stupor to almost fall over on his savior/captor again.

The girls moved out of the way as the two threaded though them (Roxas half turned and waved, mouthing 'sorry') before jumping into a room at the end of the hallway with an open door.

It was dark, but the immediate smell of detergent and bleach told him it was most definitely a laundry room.

Axel broke down laughing, letting go of Roxas' arm and fell against the nearest wall – (which turned out to be the dryer) giggling and trying to catch his breath. Roxas smiled awkwardly, not sure if he was to sit down next to him or not.

"Oh my God." Axel finally said, sighing deeply as the last of his laughter died off. "That was fucking _fun_." He finished the statement by pulling off the hood again, this time shaking out his hair making it flare out in the back.

"Remind me to piss people off more often." Roxas muttered sarcastically, half laughing. "Thanks, I owe you."

"Eh, its nothing. I got a rush out of it. If it weren't for you, I'd just be running through crowds of people." Axel stopped and rubbed his chin. "Probably naked."

Roxas couldn't help but laugh. This guy wasn't so bad. "So what now? Hide in here for the rest of the night?"

Axel paused. He usually wasn't one for planning ahead – he was rather caught up in the idea he just ran through a house of preppy people from his _friends _to save one of their 'enemies'.

They weren't going to be horribly thrilled with him.

But his thoughts were cut off as he heard talking coming from the hallway.

"Er, yeah. I saw that Roxas kid run past here with some guy in a black sweater."

Axel silently cursed the female voice, and scrambled to his feet, and moved towards the door. Sure enough, Marluxia was standing and flirting information out of the three girls.

"How long ago was this?" He purred. Marluxia leaned in a little closer. She giggled and blushed. Axel mentally stabbed them both on the face.

Axel moved towards Roxas, and looked him in what he was hoping was his eye, and whispered, "Stay in here, I'll get him away."

Roxas wasn't sure how far apart they were, but the deep smoky smell was a lot more powerful, and he could feel the countering boys breath on his cheek. He choked a little when he muttered "Alright."

The red head moved away as quickly as he had swooped in and pulled his hood up.

Roxas held his breath and listened to Axel dully murmur that 'I chased him half the way around the house but he got away. Let's go.' The other voice agreed, saying something about how boring the party was.

He decided to sit in the laundry room for a few more moments, just to be safe. He chewed on his lip and leaned against the wall, listening to the distant sound of people talking and the smell of beer mixing with bleach.

'Axel isn't so bad.' He thought without much meaning to it, besides trying to catch some thoughts and register them briefly to waste time. 'He's nice. And he smells good.'

And he's pretty.

Gah. He straightened himself with a sense of dignity and stride, and began to walk out the door, politely ignoring his subconscious thought as he walked back into the hallway. He politely made it through the bunches of people and back into the front lawn, hoping that by some work of God Hayner was still out there.

He scanned the groups, quickly realizing failure. He turned around, prepared to go back inside. He walked forward -

And into someone.

With a Mohawk.

Oh, _goddamnit. _

And before he had time to run off or say anything sarcastic there was a fist in his face – blinding pain shooting through his sinus, his face his cheeks – _oh god _– every part of his head. There was warmth hitting his bottom lip and the sensation from his nose told him it was blood.

Demyx scoffed, as the smaller blonde boy fell to his knees, his eyes clenched shut and his body fulling collapsing into a pathetic shivering mass on the lawn.

"Don't fuck around, kid." Were the last words Roxas barley registered coming from Demyx before passing out, the warm feeling of blood pooling around his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Roxas felt…warm.

And it wasn't the feeling of blood or any other unpleasant human discharge on oneself.

He felt like he was…sinking. He was surrounded by a thick warmth that was making him feel very warm and drowsy, almost lulling him off to sleep again. He inhaled deeply, hoping the ventilation into his sinus would either put the final hit into knocking him back out or to an extent, waking him up a bit more. He was lightheaded, he was dizzy. He inhaled again.

It smelled familiar…almost like cigarettes.

"Where the fuck am I?" Roxas said aloud without even really meaning to. It was really an act of making sure he could, even though his tongue felt like it would slide right out of his mouth.

"Hell."

He blinked – he wasn't expecting a voice to respond. He couldn't make out who exactly it was at the moment…but he honestly didn't care. He was warm and comfortable and -

Wait.

"Am I still asleep?" he said aloud again, not even really sure if he wanted a response, and not expecting one. It was almost panic that hit him. He couldn't remember anything that had happened in the last few days. He remembered eating eggs for breakfast several days ago. _I'm asleep. I'm asleep I'm asleep I'm- _

"You're dreaming, then."

Roxas stopped, clenched his eyes shut and tried to think. He remembered a laundry room. He remembered a dark, laundry room. He remembered the smell of cigarettes. He could feel the smell of cigarettes on the back of his tongue. It was a thick, wonderful smell. God, he was dizzy.

Cigarettes. Laundry room.

Eyeliner?

He said the next word carefully, sincerely hoping that he didn't sound crazy to whomever else was in the room, and that his tongue didn't slide out, or his head fall off or anything to that effect. "Axel?"

"Ding ding." The voice responded again. "We have a winner." He didn't sound all to thrilled with the idea of Roxas being a winner…not that Roxas really minded. He was warm.

"I didn't think you were going to wake up."

Roxas experimentally tested his eyelids, and opened his eyes to a lot more darkness. It took him a moment for his mind to float back into his body – he felt like a gallant bowl of orange jell-o.

It dawned on him when he attempted sitting up that he was tangled in a sweater. As best as he could, his mostly-numb fingers fumbled with the zipper and pulled it down, listening to the 'zzz' sound as it fell down its tracks. It was oddly mesmerizing.

He pulled it off (shaking it off his wrist, which it rather insisted on staying on) and viewed his surroundings.

The room was dark, but he was able to make out several posters on the walls with the aid of a light in the corner – noticeably the one behind him that looked like a trail of white scars, reading 'Nine Inch Nails' underneath it. Roxas involuntarily shivered a bit. He didn't like nails.

It was then that he looked towards the source of light, a dull blue one with the unmistakable shape of Axel's head in the center of it.

"How'd I…" Roxas began to say as he attempted sitting up, only to have a dull stabbing pain slam into his head. "How'd I get here?" He supported himself on his palms, leaning back on them to look at the boy in the corner.

"Fairies." Axel said, smirk barley visible as he half turned his head towards the small blonde on his bed.

"Ha ha, smart ass." Roxas said, noticing he almost slurred several of the words and he was on the verge of falling over, despite the fact he was barley sitting up. He lifted a palm and a leg, attempting to stand up. But, his muscles had other plans.

He fell back onto the bed with a soft 'plop', and he giggled. Roxas wasn't sure why. Falling over was just pretty damn funny right now.

Roxas barely registered the sound of Axel getting up from the chair and walking over to the bed. He could distantly feel part of the bed sinking under the weight of the red-head sitting on it.

"I think the pills I gave you were a bit strong." Axel said, a rather amused look on his face.

Roxas laughed again. "You gave me pills?" he said, lifting his head up a bit to glance at him. "Why?" he tried sounding accusing, he really did…but damnit, that look on his face was funny.

"Talk about blank with a capital 'b'." Axel said, sighing and raking his fingers through his bright red hair. "Do you remember anything?"

"About what?"

"Getting punched in the face?"

Roxas racked his mind, but really couldn't remember anything of the sort. "…no?"

Axel smiled, sighing a bit. "Yeah, those were some heavy fuckin' duty pills."

Roxas couldn't keep himself from giggling again. Heavy fuckin' duty. Throwing swear words in the middle of phrases was pretty funny too.

"Well. You got punched in the face. Apparently you're squeamish, because there's really no other explanation for you passing out from getting _punched_." Axel said, shrugging.

"I don't like blood." Roxas said, offhandedly. Well, he didn't.

"I found you in a curled up lump in the corner of the yard." Axel continued, like a hero back from his rescues. "I wrapped you in the sweater so no one would recognize you and brought you back here…and got you up long enough to give you some painkillers." He cocked an eyebrow at the blonde, slightly offended that Roxas wasn't as proud of him as he was of himself. "Got it memorized?"

Roxas nodded, attempting to sit up again. Axel laughed, watching Roxas fall over three more times before grabbing his wrist and helping him up. "Come on, I'll take you home."

Roxas grinned idiotically, leaning into the touch and quickly decided he liked muscle relaxers.


	5. Chapter 5

Roxas wasn't sure what was going on.

The next half hour was a giant blur involving Axel, a car, and his Mom doing that annoying screeching thing that she did when she was frightened. Roxas just fell over on the couch which was several feet short of their front door where he could hear the conversation floating around like cotton candy.

Wait…what?

Whatever. Roxas decided muscle relaxants were very interesting things.

"Well is he okay!"

"Fine. He just freaked out and fainted from shock. I woke him up and gave him some painkillers, so he's gonna be a little wobbly." Axel said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. "They were pretty strong. So…really wobbly."

Roxas' Mum looked the boy over carefully. She didn't like the idea that some freak wearing eyeliner had just dropped her boy off at one thirty in the morning and fed him drugs.

"Why are they so strong?" she said, carefully. "He wasn't smoking the…" her voice got hushed and she looked around carefully. "he wasn't smoking the _dope _was he?"

Axel bit his lip trying not to laugh. "No, no. Nothing like that. My Mum is a nurse so she knows what to give when." He then produced quite possibly the most fake sounding cough in the history of awkward situations. "So, he'll be fine. Anything else?"

The blonde woman eyed him over, and then glanced back at her near vegetable stated son on the couch. "No…no, that's all. T-thank you." She didn't like that she was thanking someone that looked like they were from the _MTV _network.

Axel just grinned. "No prob."

_Damn, I'm good. _He thought, quietly thanking any higher power that he was a good talker. "See ya Rox." He said, leaning in the doorway a bit to wave at the small blonde boy who looked like he'd just seen a flying bottle of Jesus on the wall.

"Bye." He said, turning and giving him a big smile.

_The pretty boy just said goodbye and that bottle of flying Jesus is getting none too smaller._

Axel had come home, fell into bed and rubbed himself into the pillow comfortably when his phone rang.

Thoroughly irritated, he flailed his arm helplessly in the general direction of the nightstand, and flicked open device, not even bothering to check who it was.

"What?" he snarled.

"Mornin' sleeping beauty," A familiar voice said rather cheerfully -- A familiar voice that Axel wanted to make tangible and _strangle. _"How's life?"

"Demyx." Axel ground out. "It's almost two in the morning."

"I know." He chirped. "Where'd you go tonight?"

"Left with Xiggy."

"Why?"

"He wasn't feeling well." Axel offered, mentally reminding himself to stab his best friend in his sleep the next chance he got for this.

"Why'd _you _go home?" Demyx said, sounding slightly accusing.

"I wanted to."

"Oh…well, er. I punched some kid." Demyx said bluntly. No slipping it into conversation, just flat out announced it. No q and a with this kid.

"Congratulations?" Axel said, resisting the snap at him for it. "Do you want a gold star or something?"

"It was that one kid."

"Golly."

"I think he passed out." He said, and Axel could hear the smile in his voice. "I must have hit him pretty hard."

Axel sometimes wondered where his spine went, because he usually couldn't come up with the nerve to say 'shut up and die in a ditch, Demyx. I don't care that you beat up some kid because your Mom didn't hug you when you were little.' He also left out that he had just taken the said kid home in this mental non-note, but that was totally beside the point.

There was a pause.

"I think he likes you."

Axel groaned, not wanting to hold this conversation while he would much rather be asleep. "You gossip like a school girl. I think _you_ like him, you fag."

"I DIDN'T MAKE OUT WITH MARLUXIA."

Axel blinked several times, and had to readjust the phone on his shoulder. "…Dem, I didn't say anything about Marluxia."

"Fuck you."

"That's _his_ job."

Axel was very satisfied with the angered noise Demyx made. "Well go to hell, princess, I was just wondering where you went tonight. Sorry for being concerned."

"Appology accepted. Now you know."

"It was weird…" Demyx said, thoughtfully. "That kid ran off into a laundry room."

"Fancy that."

"I wonder if-"

"Hate to be a dick." Axel said, his voice borderline angry. "But it's almost four-"

"Three."

"_What-the-fuck-ever-_o'clock in the morning." He snarled. "I'm tired, and I'm going to bed. Good night, you Marluxia-fucking, Axel-waking-up prick." He said briskly, and hung up.

There. That wasn't so hard.

Axel gave himself a mental pat on the back before stretching out. He yawned, realizing just how sleep deprived he really was. He took a moment to strip down to his boxers and crawled under the covers, his mind wandering to the pleasant thoughts of stabbing Demyx and Ro-

"AXEL"

He lazily groaned at the sound of his brother's voice coming from several rooms over.

"WHAT!" he yelled in response.

"IS THIS YOUR PHONE?"

Axel glanced over at his nightstand – his phone was right there. "NO, IT'S NOT."

There was a brief pause. Satisfied with the silence, Axel let his head drop back to the pillow and-

"WELL WHOSE IS IT?"

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW." Axel yelled back, angrily. Note to self: make a stabbing list.

"WELL COME LOOK AT IT. IT MIGHT BE YOUR FAGGY FRIENDS."

Axel groaned and pulled himself out of bed and into the next room, where his the equally red-headed boy promptly threw the object at him.

"Christ, put some clothes on."

"I would have clothes on if I wasn't in bed trying to sleep." Axel grumbled, flipping his sibling off and wandering back to his room. "If you wake me up again, I'm just going to start wandering around naked."

Axel fell back onto his bed and flicked the screen of the phone open and went to inspecting it. It didn't look familiar, definitely not Demyx's or Marluxia's.

Marluxia had the picture of some pink flowers as wallpaper…but no one was supposed to know about that.

It was when he started going through the contacts did an idea dawn on him.

"WHERE'D YOU FIND THIS!" Axel yelled, hoping his brother was still awake.

"FOUND IT ON THE FLOOR, YO."

"Roxas." Axel muttered. He stared at the phone for a good minute or two, the bright screen reflecting off his green eyes.

Fate, he decided – was a bitch.

And somewhere, halfway across town, Roxas was still laying on a couch giggling about fairies and laundry rooms.


	6. Chapter 6

Roxas woke up the next morning with an odd dawning realization on things. He remembered the night before that he thought were fuzzy blurs in his memory, but suddenly came back to him like a situation where he thought he lost all the pieces to a particularly complex puzzle…but it just so turned out that the rest of the pieces were temporarily forgot about in a box.

He rolled over and glanced at the clock next to his bed – the glowing green numbers told him that it was 12:23 in the pm. He groaned and rubbed his face into his palm. Last night. Right, that's it.

He went to a party with Hayner. He told one of those punk kids his hair looked like it got fucked by a toaster. He ran into the toaster-fuckers friend. He smelt like cigarettes. It was a good thing though. They ran off and hid…in a laundry room.

Why did he help me?

He was punched in the face, and passed out.

Roxas mentally hit himself for passing out from such a small thing. He always _was _easily scared, seeing as though he was used to being in control of situations, and it something happened that went otherwise…well.

He woke up on a bed with the very pretty boy in his English class talking to him. The very pretty boy in his English class also took him home and had to convince his mother he wasn't _smoking the dope_.

Roxas groaned, rolled (fell) out of bed and made his way to the bathroom to get dressed.

Axel tossed the small object in his hand.

Just go do it. Just go take it to him. You know where he lives (after half an hour of a very drugged Roxas trying to explain to him where his street was). If he isn't home, just leave it with whoever's there.

It's not. That. Hard.

Axel sighed and went to pick up his black sweater. "I'M GONNA GO TAKE THAT KID HIS PHONE." He yelled in the general direction of his siblings room.

"WHAT?"

Axel groaned and walked down the hallway, and hung his head in the doorway (where the half-naked boy was sitting on his bed, eating a bowl of cereal and watching the Ninja Turtles).

"Morning princess." Axel said, slightly cringing at the sight. "I'm gonna go take the phone back to Roxas."

The dazed red-head didn't blink. Mmm. Kung-Fu turtles. Axel rolled his eyes and walked across the room in a very calm manner, and leaned down right next to his ear and-

"RENO. I'M LEAVING FOR A WHILE. I WILL BE BACK LATER."

Reno however, barley flinched before shoveling another mouthful of 'Frosty Tiger Flakes' into his mouth. "Sounds good."

Axel rolled his eyes. "See ya later mullet boy."

He was barley out the door when a bowl crashed and shattered on the wall, several feet short of where he was standing.

"IT'S A FUCKING RAT-TAIL YOU EMO PRICK."

Axel quietly chuckled to himself from the other room. Well, it was one way to get his attention.

Roxas has just realized a very important part of his being was missing.

He realized this upon the thought of calling Hayner and explaining to him what happened the night before. His realization became panic when he checked the nightstand and his pockets.

And ripped half of his room apart.

It was mid-chuck of a lamp that he realized another thing- that the last time he had it was when he was at the party. This, put a damper on his pretty yellow head. Thoughts of what kind of creeps picked it up and had sex with it…or whatever sort of demented things people did with stolen cell phones these days.

He sighed and padded to his parents room (not wanting to walk all the way downstairs to get the other phone…somehow the loss of his cell phone was very depressing, and he was almost positive his subconscious might just accidentally throw his body downstairs in a fit of suicidal cell phone loss) and sat down on the neatly made bed after picking up the gray house phone on the desk.

Roxas glanced around the room before dialing. The floors were vacuumed, every visible surface was sparkling and the doorway out to the balcony was slightly open, the curtains ruffling dramatically in the light wind. It looked like something Oprah would come up with… alarmingly clean and charming.

"Mum didn't take her med again." He murmured to himself, before setting to pressing the number of his phone into the device.

Axel had been parked in front of the house for a good five minutes, and was currently leaning against his car, tossing the phone back and forth between his hands.

"The house is right there." He said, to himself, looking up at the house anxiously. The house is right there. Where's the house Axel? There. Where was Roxas? Probably in the house. That was right there. What do you have, Axel? You have Roxas' phone. And his house? Is right there.

Unless of course this was some demonic eye trick, and the seemingly pleasant baby-blue house in front of him (complete with walkway and balcony on the second floor) was a portal to HELL. But, Axel imagined this was not the case. He had heard somewhere you went to hell in a hand basket…if this was the only means of getting there; he wasn't sure.

This seemed disturbingly complicated, Axel thought frowning.

His thoughts were interrupted when the tiny black piece of machinery in his hands started ringing.

The only thing he managed to do was stare at it long enough for him to register that the midi tone as 'The Entertainer' by Chopin. Axel blinked. No harm doing picking it up…

"Er…hello?"

Roxas got Goosebumps over his arms when the voice on the other line picked up.

"Axel?"

Axel laughed softly. "Yeah, you left your phone last night." He paused. "Er. Dropped it. Whatever."

"Oh alright." Roxas said, sound very, very relieved. He was very glad his cellular device was not being raped. "Would you mind bringing it to school on Monday?" Axel laughed again.

"I'll one up ya. Look outside." He said.

Roxas blinked hesitantly, and walked over to the balcony door and poked his head through. He was expecting to see a cloud shaped like a weenie or something. Not Axel, standing in the middle of his lawn grinning up at him, his arms folded, and the light spring breeze ruffling the downed hood of the 'As I lay Dying' garmnet.

Roxas realized that he was staring, but when the hell else would this happen?

When Axel finally spoke, Roxas was expecting it to be mean and something along the lines of "Come get your phone, loser." Or "Stop staring at me" (despite the fact he was staring back) or even worse "I hate your lawn." But instead, it was a rather dazed "hey."

Roxas was glad. He liked his lawn.

He was tempted to just slouch over the railing and just stare at him. Goddamnit, he was pretty, and he was staring back. Roxas didn't take that as an 'I love you' but hey. At least the guy wasn't creeped out by him.

Or maybe he was, and he was polite.

Or maybe he was a creepy stalker who molested pictures of him at night.

"I'll be down in a minute." Roxas finally slurred out, and Axel nodded.

'A minute' was a vast overstatement. Roxas was out of the room, and down the stairs (tripping and falling several times, even though Roxas told his subconscious he wasn't suicidal anymore) and falling into the door in a good fifteen seconds.

"Hey." Roxas said, trying his damndest to sound cool…which really just made it sound like he had a tumor or something equally unpleasant. Axel smiled wistfully, opening his palm to reveal the small black phone.

Roxas picked it up carefully. Raaape.

"Thanks, so much." Roxas said, breathlessly. "You didn't have to."

"But I did." Axel said, flicking a bit of his hair back, out of his face. "S'no big deal."

"Well thanks again…it means a lot." Roxas couldn't help but glance at Axel's car. "Er. What's up with all the boxes?"

Axel glanced back. "Oh, I've gotta run around town and drop some stuff off." He sighed, remembering the chore he had to attend to that day. "My friends seem to think I'm a delivery boy."

"That sucks." Roxas said, shrugging. Well, it did.

Axel sighed inwardly. Demyx was busy today – Axel hated driving alone. He was always paranoid about someone hiding in the backseat…even though it was crammed with boxes. That way if someone was, they would have to go through Marluxia's stuff, and then eat Demyx while Axel made a dashing escape. Out of a moving vehicle. That he was driving. Axel blinked, reconsidering that hypothetical plan of action.

"Er. Do you need any help? That looks like a lot of stuff…" Roxas said, staring at his feet and mashing his fingers together. It did look like a lot of stuff…and Axel was a pretty skinny guy.

Axel blinked, letting the words set in, the finally grinned. "Actually, yeah." He said enthusiastically, feeling slightly guilty. "Er. Well. It might get kinda late. One of these is half an hour out of town and it takes-"

"I'm not doin' anything." Roxas said, quickly. Too quickly. Damnit.

But Axel just nodded. "Kick ass. Come on."

The first two deliveries were awkward.

The first was Marluxia…the pink haired 80's vomit boy, who was sitting in an empty garage when the two arrived, tuning a guitar. It was awkward because Marluxia was eyeing Roxas with the suspicion that that was indeed, the boy Demyx had punched in the face. But Axel just gave him the two boxes of _whatever_, talked to him for a minute and dropped in "Oh this is my friend Roxas."

Roxas was slowly inching away at this point in time, but froze and tried to muster a pleasant smile and a wave. Marluxia sneered at him.

"The pleasure is all mine."

Axel however didn't catch the remark, and said "Well it's great to see ya! We've got more shit to do!" with that he clasped his hand on Roxas' shoulder and dragged him out of the garage.

The next one was to a group of guys he didn't recognize…and for that, was vaguely thankful. The one that accepted the packages (a tall bulky guy with chops and dread-locks) was giving nasty looks, even to Axel.

When he was smiling.

It was a dastardly smile.

The others were apparently drunk (Roxas noted that it was only three in the afternoon) and laughing at everything. Axel and Roxas watched with dull amusement as one of them climbed to the roof with a bottle of vodka in hand, took a giant swig and yelled "I'M CAPTAIN JACK FUCKING SPARROW" before diving into the backyard pool. Roxas wondered how deep it was.

"Ignore Jack." The dread-locked guy said, flicking his hair back, almost hitting one of the other guys sitting down. Roxas wanted to say 'its kind of hard not to' but the huge guy poked him in the chest. "Who're you?"

"Er…I'm…Roxas." He said, sounding like he had just been squarely punched in the nuts. "I left something in the car…." He said, not caring that it was a dumb excuse. However, an outstretched arm wrapped around his shoulders, lightly pulling him in.

"Roxas is recovering from tonsillitis." Axel explained, giving Roxas' shoulder a squeeze. "You'll have to pardon him being quiet."

The big guy eyed him over. "D'you like metal little guy?"

Roxas wasn't quite sure if he was referring to the material or the music, but nodded quickly all the same. He didn't want his obituary to read "Died of a black dread-lock strangling".

The guy grinned harshly. "Kick ass. The name's Xaldin." He said, poking himself in the chest. "And our band kicks ass, you got that?"

Roxas nodded again quickly. Agree with the big man and you might escape with your body intact.

"Well, we've got shit to do, I'll see ya later." Axel said, nodding in his direction. Xaldin patted him on the shoulder and retreated back to the drunken group.

"Xaldin? 'The Captain' isn't breathing…."


	7. Chapter 7

"Honestly? I think the world would be a better place without them."

"How's that?"

"Well think about it. If the world was devoid of 7-11 stores, people would have to go to normal stores at one in the morning to get cigarettes or whatever. It would put more money in the rest of the community, instead of in the 7-11 empire, which is actually plotting to take over the world, and pretty soon ever store ever will be a 7-11."

Roxas cocked an eyebrow, taking a sip of the Dr. Pepper that he was cradling in his lap. "Is that why we just stopped there and got gas?"

Axel looked thoughtful for a moment. "Alright, maybe I'm a corporate whore. But I'll be on the throne of the 7-11 empire, at least." He said, shrugging. "They might let me be their pet or something."

Roxas laughed, and silently decided today was the greatest day _ever_. He got to hang out with Axel…the guy that he wouldn't admit he liked, simply because he didn't want to _think _about it, because he didn't want to go through the "OH GOD I'M GAY" phase, so he figured it best to ignore the situation until Axel had him pinned down with his tongue down his throat…or anything else.

Roxas suppressed his sexually inclined thoughts with another swig of soda.

The final 'delivery' was a couple of boxes of china to Axel's grandparents that his Mother insisted he take up to them. It was a huge house on top of a huge hill, a good way out of town (or so Axel explained, using some very exaggerated hand motions in the process, nearly smacking Roxas in the face. Twice) out where there was nothing but farmland and little fruit stand. Roxas wasn't quite sure it was a fruit stand, because the man was just yelling "DELICOUS DELICOUS APPLES DELICIOUS!" and honestly looked like he'd escaped from the mental ward.

The rest of the ride was fairly quiet underneath the hum of the radio and the whistle of wind getting in through the cracked window.

It was getting dark when the car was pulled to a halt in front of, yes, a very big house on top of a very big hill. They awkwardly managed to haul the boxes out of the car and through the (rather big) lawn, stumbling to the door where Axel kicked what he hoped was the door, because of the tower of cardboard obscuring his vision.

The door flung open and a woman with the brightest, most annoying red hair Roxas had ever seen (Axel argued that he only needed to carry one box) flung the door open squealing "AXLEY!"

She proceeded to hug him (somehow getting her long skinny arms around the boxes) talking at a hundred miles and hour about he never comes to visit and how much he grows up in the shortest amount of time and how – (a short man Roxas assumed to be his grandfather came forward during this rant and took the boxes from both of them and set them inside the doorway) and how HANDSOME he was getting and –

"Who's this she said?" Finally able to fully see Roxas. She beamed at him. "Oh he's a handsome young man! Do you go to school with Axel? You have such pretty blonde hair, do you dye it? Don't be a stranger! COME GIVE GRANDMA A HUG!"

And Roxas suddenly had a rather uncomfortable face-full of old lady…bosom.

Axel laughed nervously. "He's my friend. Name's Roxas."

Old lady Axel pulled him out at arms length, her hands still latched into his shoulders, giving him a very thoughtful look. "Is this your boyfriend?"

Roxas choked a little on something he wasn't eating, Axel laughed. "No, Grandma."

"Why not?" she said, shifting him around to get a better look at his head. "He looks like a healthy, sturdy young man. Make for good grandkids."

Axel didn't want to remind his grandmother that he was not in fact a girl, or didn't have a vagina to create grandchildren with. But, she'd always wanted a little granddaughter, so Axel's mother told him to just take the comments politely.

"You really need to settle down with someone, you know that?" she said suddenly (now inspecting Roxas' chin) "You're not getting any younger."

"I'm 18, grandma. I'll have plenty of time to get married."

"Well I'm not getting any younger." She insisted, finally letting go of Roxas. "Just think about it. What happened to that Demyx boy? You were in love with _him_."

Roxas bit down on his lip to keep from breaking down laughing, and hopelessly mouthed "What the hell?" At Axel, who's face had just taken a shade similar to that of his hair.

"I wasn't in love with Demyx, grandma." He said slowly. "Just…"

"Well you boys had better come in and get some cookies! I wouldn't be a stereotypical grandma if I didn't feed you!"

"Actually, we probably better go." Axel said quickly, laughing nervously. "Need to get Roxas home y'know."

"Well alright." She said, her voice slightly sad. "But come back and visit, alright?" she looked at Roxas and winked. Axel rolled his eyes.

The moment they got back in the car, Roxas broke down laughing. "You…haha, you…and ha- _Demyx?_"

Axel glared at him. "We were drunk. Really, _really _drunk."

"Oh but you loved him." Roxas said, grinning and trying not to break down laughing. Axel groaned. "Either tell me the story or you're never living this down."

"We were really drunk. Demyx told me he loved me...and I said I loved him too." Axel coughed nervously. "Upon hearing _that _my grandma came in...but around that time we were on the floor sucking face. _That's _what happened."

"I knew that kid wasn't straight." Roxas said, shaking his head a bit.

"Tell me about it." Axel said, rolling his eyes and lightly shoving Roxas in the shoulder.

"Hey, don't shove me, or I'm not letting you bear my children." Roxas said sternly, giving Axel a very convincing look.

Axel laughed and started the car.

After a short amount of time driving, Roxas realized that they were taking a different route than the one that they had come in. Completely opposite.

Roxas was known to watch a lot of cop dramas, and knew this was _always_ how it began. "We expect the victim in the passenger seat was taken out and beaten to death before the body was left in this field." The main cop with the husky mustache would say.

"I suspect it was at night." Roxas imagined the mustached detective saying. "The suspect said 'you're a lame preppy kid and I hate your lawn' before beating him to death."

They'd reached the top of the large hill, away from any houses when Axel pulled over, the motor humming to a slow stop. This sounded to Roxas like the end of his LIFE.

As in…DEATH.

Roxas shivered. "Er..Axel?" He didn't want to die. Didn't didn't didn't want to die.

"Come on." Axel said, giving him a knowing smile. "Come look at this, it's really cool."

Roxas undid his seatbelt slowly watching Axel get out of the car. So much for the great night. Axel was going to club him to death in a field.

Roxas shut the door as he stepped out. Farmland. Lots and lots of farmland and empty fields. Axel was sitting on the hood of the car however, and was patting the empty area next to him. Awkwardly Roxas shifted onto it (it was still hot, damnit. He quietly cursed Axel and that damn protective layer of sweater), and leaned back.

And stared.

The sky was endless it seemed like, and the stars were so incredibly…_there. _It never really occurred to him that stars could get that clear. Not that he usually stared at stars…they were pretty, but it wasn't exactly a pastime. It didn't keep him from gaping.

"It's amazing." Roxas said quietly.

"Yeah." Axel said in quiet agreement. "It is."

Roxas didn't know what possessed him to do it at that moment (besides the fact "If I were a girl, this would be extremely romantic. But I'm not. So it's just _cool_")but he moved his hand just inches towards Axel's, so that their outer fingers were barley touching. It was a small gesture…and was better than being beaten to death in a field.

Axel squinted hard at the sky. "Man, I don't get star consolations. They _all _look like dippers if you look at them right."

Roxas decided not to correct him on his word usage.

"Then make up your own shapes." Roxas said, shrugging. "Right now I can see a bird, a tree, and Dave Mathews."

"That would explain a lot."

Roxas suddenly marveled in the warmth that covered his hand, and the fingers slipping in between his and –

_Oh God he's holding my hand. _

It was amazing how long it took Roxas to catch onto things sometimes, but when the realization finally hit he had to use every bit of his willpower not to break down giggling and get a one way ticket back to flying-bottle-of-Jesus land.

He closed his eyes. He was in the middle of nowhere holding hands with Axel, and somewhere up in the stars, Dave Mathews was winking down at him.

But like all perfect moments, it had to be ruined by the loud MIDI tone of 'The Entertainer' coming from Roxas' pocket. Roxas felt like shooting something BIG with a really big gun. He unwound their fingers as he sat up, shoving his hand in his pocket to retrieve the small device.

"Hello? Yeah…fine. I'll be home soon." There was a pause. "No, I'm not doing drugs. Yes. I'm sure." Roxas sighed. "I'm sure if someone slipped some drugs into something I drank I'd notice. I'm fine. No, I'm not just saying that because I'm high. Mum…no, MOM. I'M NOT ON DRUGS. Oh. Okay. Alright. See ya in a bit. Love you too." He sighed and snapped the phone shut, shoving it back in his pocket.

Roxas turned to look at Axel, who was sitting up with his knees pressed to his chest – and smiling lazily. "We should get going."

"Yeah." Roxas said, smiling weakly.

Roxas smiled. It was indeed a good night.


	8. Chapter 8

Axel was currently stuck in what he was calling a retarded Roxas haze.

Or indigestion. His grandma sure did make some weird food. What the hell were eggplant cookies…? More importantly, why did he _eat _them?

So, he liked Roxas. He quietly admitted that to himself and held Roxas' hand under the stars. It was romantic, damnit. Every sexually confused boy had the right to do something cheesy and romantic now and then.

In fact, Roxas was the only thing he could really even think about on the drive home after dropping him off (which almost caused him to drive into a stop sign…and an old lady. Who the hell was walking around at this time in the morning anyway? Jesus tap-dancing Christ.

Though, the act of dropping the blonde off was an interesting event, none the less. Even if he almost hit a Grandma.

Axel was arguing with the little voice in his head to just "KISS HIM DAMNIT! DOOOOOOO IT! HE WAAAANTS YOU TOOOO" but during the argument, the short blonde woman Axel vaguely remembered as Roxas' mother came bustling out of the house. She was flailing her fat arms around, yelling about how her son was "HIGH ON MARA-JOO-WANNA"

After an awkward conversation explaining where the two had been all night and reassuring her that her darling little boy wasn't doing anything illegal, all he could do was feebly wave at the blonde as he was dragged off, about to get a mighty talking to about the dangers of drugs. Again.

Always next time. If there was a next time, anyway.

Wait? Next time. Axel thought he was getting a bit ahead of himself. There was still that part of his mind saying "What the hell is wrong with you? He's on the opposite end of the spectrum as you! He probably thinks you're a freak! Two days ago you called him a fag and considered throwing something at him!"

"Oh, shut up," Axel said aloud, silencing the voice. The dice hanging off his rear-view mirror gave him a weird look. He was tempted to yell at them too, but something caught his eye as he turned into the subdivision; his house peaking into view.

There was one more car than usual. A car Axel recognized all to well, because he was_ in_ it a lot of the time. Axel groaned as he pulled into the driveway. Demyx.

What could he possibly want at this hour?

Well…besides the fact they were best friends and had the tendency to show up at each others houses at weird hours for absolutely no reason. He was feeling rather hostile towards the boy at the time.

Axel approached his front door, fumbling with his keys to find the one labeled 'house' (which was quiet a task when the only light he had was the eerie orange sub division light) and right when he thought he found it –

"Where the fuck have you been?"

Oh hey, best friend.

"Hi." Axel deadpanned, brushing past him and into the house, pocketing his keys, thankful that he didn't have to search the key chain any longer. "What's up?"

"Where were you?" Demyx repeated, following him closely. The tone of his voice sounded none too happy. Axel felt like a housewife who'd just gotten home an hour late with her hair messed up and her secretary skirt all bunched up with a shirt reading "ADULTERY."

Axel however, was not married to Demyx, nor was he wearing a secretary skirt…or. Damn hypothetical situations.

Axel cocked an eyebrow, stepping into the living room and turning on a light. "I dunno. Why were you waiting for me?"

"Marluxia told me you were hanging out with that Roxas kid."

This was the point in time Axel's mind totally shut down, and a small checklist replaced any form of thinking he attempted to make. It read "Option one: Lie. Option two: tell the truth and make him feel like an idiot. Option three: Tell him you have cancer."

If it wasn't for the fact Demyx was already knowledgeable to the fact Axel didn't have cancer (only because he'd tried the excuse several times prior), he could have picked that. So, tonight was number two.

"Yeah."

"Yeah! You were hanging out with that little prick!"

"Yeah," Axel said, shrugging. "Is there a problem with that?"

"I PUNCHED HIM!"

"I know," Axel said, proceeding as usual. He began down the hallway, unzipping his hoodie and threw it on the floor upon entering his room. "You have the habit of hitting people you know won't fight back."

"But…why were you hanging out with that little dick!" Demyx said, utterly perplexed at the situation. He didn't like thinking about things too much.

"He's actually pretty nice," Axel said, shrugging as he collapsed on his bed. "And because you were gone today. I didn't want to go run errands alone," Axel thought for a moment. "So technically? This is your fault,"

Demyx face faltered as he attempted to come up with some clever comeback. All that came out was "Eh?" Axel rolled his eyes and let a little smile creep onto his lips. Demyx was so incredibly stupid sometimes it was cute, and he _was _his best friend. He couldn't stay mad at him forever.

Or he'd just forget about hating him and come back to it later. Eh.

"Wanna play Blood Splatter Gore-fest 2?" Axel voiced dully, after a few moments of awkward silence. Demyx's face lit up.

He liked being a guy sometimes. It was so easy to resolve fights.

Before sneaking into Reno's room to steal an extra controller, he leaned against the hallway. He delved into his pocket for his cellphone, messed with the buttons for a minute and put it back.

"You promise me you aren't high?"

Roxas sighed again, leaning back in the blue arm chair in their living room. "Promise, Mom."

The woman finally nodded. "Well that's good," she said, standing. "Sleep well. I don't want you all doped up when your cousins arrive tomorrow."

Roxas' half lidded eyes shot open. Cousins?

"Cousins?" he said, voicing the one word doing laps around his brain. Oh no. Oh no no no no-

"mmmhmm." His mother said, oblivious to the effect the one word had on her sons brain. "They're staying the week."

"Er. Why won't they be in school?" Roxas said, shielding his shock and disgust. The last time he voiced his dislike for his cousins his Mom made him take a drug test. . . everyone liked their cousins, only someone who was _high _would say otherwise.

"Spring break," she said simply, waddling over and kissing her little Roxas on the forehead (who was actually several inches taller than her) "Sleep well,"

Gah. He forgot their school had spring break in March instead of April like his school. Great.

He didn't mind his cousins in small doses. As in; half an hour family dinner that they had every so often. . . not week long visits. The two were obnoxious. In totally different ways. It wasn't one, consecutive pain in the ass. It was two separate kinds that Roxas hated equally.

Sora was a nice kid, but he was loud, annoying, and quite possibly the biggest nerd in existence. He laughed at things that weren't funny, which was unfortunate because he would laugh so hard he couldn't breathe, and he had severe asthma. Roxas was grounded for a week after laughing at the incident and his aunts birthday last year.

Aerith perpetually seemed like she was on drugs; or had some quite form of ADD. She stared at things, _a lot. _When she did this zombie like state of spacing out, she always had this weird smile and a glazed look in her eyes. She blinked one eye at a time, and liked reading ingredients on the back of bottles.

Roxas sighed at the memory of prying her away from a soup can and trudged upstairs before his phone gave a little jingle. He pulled it out of his pocket, flipping it open to:

'got your number of the phone. Hope ya don't mind. G'night.'

Axel. Roxas smiled before climbing the stairs up to his room, wondering how he typed so much up on a keypad and how he was going to survive the following week.

His thoughts were cut off as he tripped on a stair. Damnit.


	9. Chapter 9

Sunday morning, Roxas had a very rude awakening.

'Very rude', in the sense he was literally rudely awakened. Not like some kind of revelation where he woke up screaming "I'VE WASTED MY LIFE" and ran off to kill himself in the most dramatic way or go bungee jumping or something to that effect. Rather, rude as in the fact it was nine in the morning (a time Roxas enjoyed sleeping) and he was being _jumped _on.

Roxas, was inevitably going to have to choke a bitch.

"What the hell?" He snarled groggily, prying his eyelids open to the image of a boy with brown hair slightly longer than his grinning down at him with a huge dorky grin.

Roxas had never before in his life felt the more startling compulsion to cut the feature off his cousins face with a pair of rusty scissors.

"HI ROXAS!"

"Hi, moron." Roxas muttered, and rather than enthusiastically greeting his relative with open arms, he greeted him by kicking him in the shin (which was quite a task, seeing as though he was still coated in a thick blue comforter.) and ducked his own head underneath the pillows.

"Hey come on! GET UUUUUP." Sora whined, grabbing Roxas' arm and yanking on it. Sora had intensions of pulling his cousins head out from under the covers; but yanked on Roxas' arm just a little too hard.

And landed the blonde on the floor. Ouch.

"I'm going to kill you!" Roxas yelled, pushing himself off of the floor; now fully awake and fully ready to strangle the living shit out of the slightly older boy. Sora was a lot more intelligent than Roxas gave him credit for, because he had the direct impulse to run.

The last time someone threatened to kill him and he didn't run, he had a giant piece of bologna shoved up his nose; but that was neither here nor there, and it was a very long story that made him shiver involuntarily when he thought about it.

Roxas grabbed the closest thing he could while angrily ripping out down a hallway, which happened to be a can of wood cleaner. Not taking notice, he chucked it at Sora. The bottle hit the brown haired boys ankle, causing him to yelp before swinging down the second branch of the hallway.

They were halfway down the space before the two skidded to an abrupt halt, a few inches short of Aerith, who Sora quickly ducked behind. Haha, take that you friggin' psycho.

"Er. Hi Aerith." Roxas said, laughing awkwardly. He rubbed his ankles together unconsciously. He had the habit of approaching her like one would approach a retarded animal. It was essentially harmless, but it was still pretty freakin' weird.

"I like spiderman." She said slowly, in that weird 'I killed your entire family' smile coming up on her thin pink lips.

Roxas was about to ask what she was talking about before he looked down and – oh. He was wearing nothing but spiderman boxers. He groaned. He reminded himself to get dressed the next time he attempted homicide.

Or just stop attempting homicide. That would be swell. Most kids his age liked having sex. He liked lighting his friends on fire.

"Let me get dressed and I'll meet you downstairs, alright?" he said hopelessly, his entire body wracked with anger and loss and a little bit of hunger. He hadn't eaten anything last night after coming home. He tried calming himself down. It was just his cousins.

Sora poked his head out from behind Aerith's shoulder, who was now staring at the hinge on the hallway closet door. Roxas shrugged apologetically. Reluctantly he nodded and galloped downstairs, Aerith calmly following. Roxas watched them retreat, making sure they were actually going before turning his back to return to his room.

Today; was going to suck.

Axel woke up slowly, his eyes feeling much like they'd had a good run in with a bunch of sandpaper. Or just sand. Or something really frickin' dry, because it felt like he slept on carpet or something.

He was on the floor. Oh.

A controller was gripped in one hand, and his other apparently have given up on holding his head up and was now a make-shift pillow. The small TV screen was glaring the words 'game over' in giant bloody letters, the maimed figures of his own and Demyx's characters lying on the polygon ground with their limbs missing.

Axel glanced at his friend, who was asleep on the floor a short bit away from him, snoring lightly. All of his limbs were intact. Damnit.

"Mer," Axel said unintelligently, still half lidded. He gently (in a not gently and subconsciously still pissed off at way) kicked Demyx in the hip. The blonde stirred, but didn't move. His Mohawk had long since fallen and he was left with a mullet, which always made Axel smile.

It was good to know he was a couple hundred times cooler than his friend.

He slowly rose from the floor, an unflattering carpet mark gracing his hip where his shirt had yanked up. He paused to stretch, his muscles purring in content as his back made a loud crackling noise. Following suit, he popped his neck and padded out of his room.

His brother was already up, Axel found upon entering the kitchen, and immediately chucked a small black object at him, which Axel thankfully caught, despite his dulled over morning sense of being.

"My phone?" Axel said drowsily, glancing it over. He could have sworn he put it in his pocket the night before. Or set it on his desk or some other act of it being in his personal space. There was a plausible explanation for Reno having his phone, he supposed. Unless those goddamn gnomes were back.

God, he hated gnomes.

Note to self: stop taking muscle relaxants from your over-medicating Mother, Axel.

"I had to call someone," Reno replied, rubbing the back of his head thoughtlessly. "And er. My phone got-"

"Taken away by Mom. Right. Whatever," Axel said, awkwardly tripping over his words, about to retreat as quickly as possible. His Mom had taken his siblings phone away on the suspicion he was engaging in phone sex, which wasn't far from the truth. Axel shivered at the memory. He didn't sleep properly for the rest of the week. Ew. Ewewew-

"Axel?"

Oh shut up, I'm busy. Ewewew- "What?" Axel said, turning his head back to glance at the slightly shorter red-head.

"That Zexion kid called like. Four times," Reno said, sending him a sheepish grin.

"How the fuck long were you on the phone?" Axel said, before just shaking his head and walking off, not really wanting an awnser. He didn't want to know. He also considered taking some peroxide to the device. He didn't want to touch it.

In his room, Demyx was finally sitting up and blinking slowly with a look that screamed 'I am Demyx, I play a sitar and I just woke up' and drowsily staring at the wall.

Axel stopped to wonder what to do about the phone situation, and how to call that emo bastard Zexion back without getting Reno cooties on himself, and wondered how exactly 'I am Demyx, I play sitar and I just woke up' could be conveyed through a stare.

Well. He had one of them down.

He chucked the phone at Demyx, successfully hitting his best buddy in the whole wide world painfully hard in the back of the head, rousing an "Ouch, you bastard!" out of him.

"Call Zexion, I'm taking a shower," Axel said, turning and slamming the door in his face. Demyx was left alone in the room to call Zexion and do whatever he wanted to for the next fifteen minutes. WHOO. FREEDOM.

Demyx didn't do much; really. Demyx just stared at the phone, blinked at it, considered licking it for a moment and finally flipped it open to call their mutual friend.

"You're doing what now?" Roxas said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Meeting up with some friends in half an hour at the coffee place by the mall because we haven't seen them in forever and-"

Roxas resisted the urge to voice his thoughts of "You have friends?" and just shrugged, simply settling, "Alright."

"You're coming, aren't you?" Aerith said, blinking slowly. Her eyes looked unfocused like she was going to go cross eyed and her head was going to float off or something. That would suck trying to explain to his Mom.

"Er. I'm alright," Roxas said, thinking of a hundred things he'd rather do besides hang out with them. Like; stab himself in the face with something very dull and rusty.

"But she's your friend too, isn't she?" Sora said, cocking his head. Good god, he looked like a Labrador that wanted a friggin' cookie.

Roxas once again, resisted the urge to voice his inner monologue of "If she associates with you losers, no."

"Er."

"Oh come on, its coffee! And it's morning! And you're grouchy in the morning! So if you drink coffee, you'll be happy!" Sora said, grinning at the brilliance of his equation. "Please!" he said, tossing Roxas the biggest pair of puppy dog eyes he'd ever seen.

Roxas thought he just looked like one of those fish you saw in the grocery store; eyes wide and frozen.

"Come on Roxas," Aerith said, doing that weird thing where she blinked on eye at a time. He half expected her to finish off with 'ONE OF US, ONE OF US.' It thankfully, never came.

Both of them stared intently at him before he let out an exasperated sigh. "Fine," Roxas finally muttered. "Whatever," he did like coffee after all, and chances were they'd get so caught up in talking about whatever it is their type talked about he could sip coffee and think about Ax- Er. Coffee sounded good.

The door to Axel's room opened as it owner waltzed in; totally naked exept for the towel loosely draped around his waist, wet hair gleaming down his shoulders. Demyx stared a bit. Mmm. Hip.

"So what's up with Zex?" Axel said, narrowing his eyes. "Hey fag wad, my face is up here?" Axel teased; Demyx flipped him off. "Turn around you freak, I'm getting dressed,"

Demyx rolled his eyes and rolled over on his friends bed. It smelled like him. Like cinder and wood. Axel shucked the towel from his waist and began digging around his closet for clothing, not noticing Demyxs' stare down with the Nine Inch Nails poster on the wall.

"Zexion has to go with his little sister to a coffee shop for an hour, he wanted to know if we wanted to come," Demyx said, resisting the urge to turn around and get an eyeful of Axel wang, just to piss his friend off. Haha. _wang. _

"Why does he have to go with her?" Axel said, without much interest as he pulled on a pair of boxers.

"Remember? She's that clepto freshman chick."

"Oh yeah," Axel said, thoughtfully. She'd gotten so bad they'd put her in 'intensive counseling' for a week, but that didn't last long because she stole the files and the counselors glasses. "So he just wants some company, I take it?" Axel continued, selecting a random 'Poison the Well' shirt from the 'clean' pile in his closet.

"Pretty much," Demyx said, shrugging and letting out a little sigh. Damnit, Axel smelled like 'I-just-got-out-of-the-shower', which was a good smell. He discreetly sniffed himself. He smelt like Demyx. Which wasn't a bad thing, necessarily.

"Where's Lex?" Axel asked, digging around for a pair of pants.

"No idea, that is kinda weird though," Demyx said, his eyes wandering the room for something else to glare at. That Nine Inch Nails poster just wouldn't give up, damnit.

It was true that the little emo boy wasn't usually without his huge brown haired companion, that looked more like a bear than anything. Admittedly, Lexaeus would have been brilliant at football if he hadn't broken some poor sap's leg in PE.

…And four of his ribs. And his wrist. Sadly that Strife kid was never the same since, even though Lexaeus tried appologizing. They'd watched a bear documentary in biology and he almost cried.

Demyx shrugged again. "Can I turn around yet?"

"Whatever," Axel said, running a brush through his hair unenthusiastically before ducking for his hoodie. "Shall we?"

Demyx nodded. He didn't have much of an objection. He liked coffee. Zexion was alright. His little sister was kind of annoying, but that's why he imagined they were doing him a favor by coming along. Demyx smiled; he liked feeling important.

Axel was feeling oddly optimistic about the trip. Like something good was going to happen. He figured it was nothing, but skipped down the driveway all the same; getting an odd look from Demyx and a few of the neighbors.


	10. Chapter 10

I x2093 appologize for this taking so long. Lotsa issues. Whats more is that this chapter has been done for almost three months, I just forgot about it :D Updates soon, you have a big fat Piro Promise. ahem I have the week off from work, I need something to do D:

"Can I get ummm…." A thoughtful look crossed the young girls face as she gazed up at the menu-board inside of Coffee Moe's house of Coffee House. So many choices. Caffine was really the greatest thing ever, Yuffie decided as she scanned the list of drinks again. So many ways to pump her bloodstream with even more adrenaline, in so many delicious flavors! Yuffie almost purred at the though, but set herself back to deciding on a drink.

Zexion stood behind her, wondering how much effort it would take to break one of the mugs on display into a bunch of tiny pieces and slit his wrists with them. He wasn't suicidal, but it was worth it to get away from Yuffie and not have his Mom yell at him.

The girl behind the counter really didn't give a shit either way. She wanted them to order their damn coffee so she could go back to playing tetris on her cell phone. It was Sunday, damnit. No one was supposed to come in on Sunday. "and God said, 'thou shalt not buy-eth thy coffee on el Sunday, or thou shalt be turned into salt'"

"I would like a large orange mocha frappe-chinno with an extra shot of carmel, please!" Yuffie finally said, beaming in a fashion that stated 'I'm not sure what's going on'. The girl behind the counter cocked an eyebrow and stopped her sacrilegious thoughts before jotting it down.

"Anything for you, sir?" she asked, glancing the half a face, of Zexion, the majority of it shrouded in a wave of dyed hair and a pair of thick rimmed glasses. He looked very menacing…in a weird kind of way.

"Just a plain coffee," he said, shrugging.

Zexion hated coffee; or caffine, to be specific. It made him _extremely_ hyper and twitchy and _giggly_. The last time he drank too much, he was laughing for ten straight minutes about something Lexaeus had said about pudding cups.

He really wished it wasn't such a nice day and his sister didn't suck so much. And Lexaeus wasn't busy…stupid dying Grandma of his.

The request had been simple enough from his Mother; "Take your sister down to the coffee place for an hour while she meets up with some of her school friends, and make sure she doesn't steal anything.'

Zexion wouldn't go down without a bloody fight though. "She's grounded though, remember? She tried stealing Mr. Geppeto's weiner dog."

"Do it, or I'm not letting your pansy ass out of the house until you're thirty."

He promptly complied and left with his sister bounding out the door behind him ten minutes later. Guh. Freshman.

On the way over, he called Axel. He was really the only semi sort of friend he had outside Lexaeus and….er. Lexaeus. He really just tolerated them (Axel _and _Demyx, seeing as though they were rarely apart); but in this case he was willing to hang out with anyone to avoid the sound of Yuffie talking.

He glanced out at the streets through a blurry window as they sat down in the corner. The landscape colors were slowly turning a shade or two darker as rain calmly splattered over them. Mmm. Depressing.

"I'm gonna go sit over-"

"No, you're not." Zexion said, flatly, slightly annoyed that she had opened her mouth. He was thinking about the color of the asphalt, damnit. "You're sitting here until your little friends get here. I saw you eyeing those baskets."

Yuffie sat down across from him, feeling rather defeated. He was such a bore sometimes. All the time, really. With his _sitting _and _reading_ and…just being there. Ugh. He never wanted to do anything fun like make cakes or play with kittens or steal an air compressor.

He pushed the thick rimmed glasses up his nose with his index finger before glancing at her. "How long is this going to be?"

"An hour," she said happily, swaying her feet unconsciously under the table, and taking a sip of her mocha-cappa-whatever. "Mom said so," Zexion rolled his eyes. To further the emo stereotype, he fucking hated his parents.

Well. Sometimes. Their Mom was pretty cool because she baked cookies a lot, and Zexion liked cookies. _And_ she made Yuffie cry after telling her "They don't stay kittens forever you know," which also made Zexion smile.

"Whatever," he said, flicking his hair out again to get a better view of the book he'd pulled out while Yuffie started rambling about…something. Wait. She was talking?

Eh. Whatever. Book. Today's selecton happened to be a bit of literature from the 18th century with too many confusing metaphors and disturbing imagery.

Yuffie began to tap her foot against the furniture as she sipped the drink, eyeing the glass container full of biscotti, wondering how hard it would be to stick it in her jacket. Zexion caught this look and kicked her.

"Knock it off," he snarled, turning the page.

"You're just mad because what's his face isn't here, the huge dude."

Zexion ignored her. Hmm. According to this author, the world happens to be a drowning void and we all are really insects feeding on its corpse. _How awesome_.

Yuffie leaned in on her elbows, grinning at him. "You liiiike him,"

"and you've almost been arrested four times," he countered, dully. "Your point?"

They'd been over this so many times it didn't even faze him anymore. She was going to come back with 'at least I'm not gay' and he'd reply 'at least I pay for underwear'. It was getting old, really.

Just as she was about to come back to his comment, the little bell jingled over the door and –

"YUFFIE!"

"Sora!" she yelled, jumping to her feet, (bumping the table and spilling some of Zexion's coffee on his hoodie. Le sigh, life is pain.) and pounced the brown haired boy. Aerith was tackled next, who was smiling at a bronze cat statue situated on the counter.

"Oh hello," She said airily, smiling at Yuffie.

Yuffie glanced back at Zexion, who nodded dully at her.

The three sat down a couple of tables over (which was pointless, really. The place was almost empty) and began to loudly chatter about how awesome the cappa-mocha-who-gives-a-fuck-with extra caramel was.

"Oh yeah!" Sora said loudly, tripping over himself to stand up again. He rushed over to the doorway, where a very out-of-place Roxas was standing.

"This is our cousin, Roxas! He tried killing me!" Sora said cheerfully, latching onto his arm.

Yuffie directed her attention to the blonde, and began talking loudly (and quickly) at him about something. Sora had him in a chair (rather forcibly) in a moment, as Aerith began counting tiles on the ceiling.

A look of 'oh sweet Jesbus, what have I _done?' _crossed his face as he attempted saying something…or he could have been trying to choke himself with half sentences.

"I er. Have to go wash my hands," Roxas finally blurted out, dodging out of her line of vision and slipped off, past Zexion towards the bathroom. Zexion cocked an eyebrow.

That boy looked horribly familiar from somewhere.

He went back to reading a chapter entitled 'maggots; the nature of man' before glaring at his sister, who attempted taking the fake potted plant off the window. She grinned back sheepishly; he rolled his eyes.

"Why the hell did we walk?!" Demyx snarled, pulling the hood tighter around his ears, which were going numb from the cold and rain occasionally splattering on his face. He had been whining to the extent Axel had given up and given him his sweater to shut him up.

"It's two blocks away," Axel said, who seemed totally unmoved by the chilly rain spilling down his person. "It really isn't that long of a walk,"

"But it's raining,"

"And you suck,"

"Oh, har har." Demyx stated, sarcastically. He glanced up, willing his head to raise. "Oh hey, there it is!"

"I told you it wasn't that far away," Axel muttered, rolling his eyes, though at the same time feeling slightly releived.

The two picked up the pace a bit as they jogged towards the building, the rain coming down just a little bit harder to urge them on.

Upon entering, Demyx triumphantly yelled "WARMTH!" and took the hood off, doing a little skip. Axel rolled his eyes, catching the image of Zexion in the corner.

"Hey," Axel said, smiling and sitting down opposite the black haired emo boy. Zexion nodded as Demyx plopped down next to him.

The three started into idle conversation when the bathroom door opened and –

"You!"

"YOU?!"

"Axel?"

"Roxas?"

"ROXAS!"

"ACH!"

"Zexion," Zexion said quietly, feeling rather left out as Axel and Demyx shot to their feet, ensuing a rather pointless one-word-per-person argument.

Demyx was glaring at Roxas, Roxas was looking back and forth from Axel to Demyx in a rather paniced way, and Axel looked at a loss.

Meanwhile behind the counter, coffee girl had resumed her game of tetris.


	11. Chapter 11

HEY GUYS IT ONLY TOOK ME A YEAR. 

ONWARD.

-----------

Roxas was halfway home when he finally realized what had just happened. He stoped, bent over with his hands on his knees panting and thought about it.

Then started running again.

They were friends. Of course they were. Roxas KNEW that, what part of him honestly-- Axel and Demyx. Well, this was fantastic. He ran all the way home and promtply collapsed on the couch. Well, today officially sucked. He sat there, heaving breath into his lungs and absently poked himself in the thight. He was getting kind of chubby-- that short run really shouldn't have winded him.

He leaned back for another couple of seconds before he heard the door open and close again, a soft rustling and-- great.

"Hey Roxas!" Sora beamed, plopping down next to him. He absently wiped some sweat off his brow with the back of his hand, smelled it and went back to his cousin. "Whats up?"

"Oh, you know," Roxas said in the most monotone voice he could musted while still out of breath. A fraction of his brainpower went to hating Sora for not getting winded running all the way back. Fag. "Just waiting for Nancy to get home. Thought I'd throw that roast in the oven for when the kids get home from school. Long day at the office." he finished sarcastically, still staring blankly at the wall.

Sora blinked.

"That Demyx kid doesen't like me much," Roxas said, sighing. "Why, I'm not sure."

"You're kind of scrawny and dorky. And the only time you go to parties people try hurting you? I also heard you started crying at school last week in the bathroom," Sora said, his expression growing thoughtful and putting his index finger on his chin. "Oh, and you hang out with that one asian chick -- Mulan? And she's like. A freak. She totally beat up that Cloud kid once and--"

"Where," Roxas said, getting his teeth to stop gritting together long enough to form words. "Did you hear all that?" Mulan beat everyone up, anyway. That wasn't weird at all.

"The girl that worked at the coffee shop. She was nice," Sora said, smiling again and kicking his feet against the couch. "So you have a crush on that Axel kid?"

"No." Roxas snapped, folding his arms and sighing. Sora rolled his eyes and wandered into the kitchen.

"You want a glass of water?"

"No," Roxas said. Yes he did-- he was just tired and being an asshole. Eh, no better person to be an asshole to than Sora. That little weirdo literally had sun shining out of his ass. Roxas wasn't too sure how that would work. Sora returned to the living room, sitting a glass of water down in front of Roxas.

"Are you gay?" Sora asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Do I LOOK gay?" well, he'd lied enough for one day. He could mess with the kid a bit.

"A little," Sora said, shrugging. He took a sip of water and Roxas groaned, throwing his hands onto his face and rubbing his eyes. Today was not a good day.

"Well. . ." Sora started, drawing his index finger around the edge of the glass. "I don't really care. Are you bi? That's fine." He paused and leaned over a little. "You can tell meeee,"

"Why would I be able to tell you?" Roxas said, suddenly bitter. He couldn't tell goddamn anyone. He tried telling Hayner once but it didn't end well-- specifically with the words 'Dude, if you were any way shape or form of queer I would dump you like an ugly turd. And I'm like. . .you're only friend.' That statement pretty much summed it up.

"Well. I'm bi," Sora said sheepishly, giving him and awkward smile. "Er. . . you know, if you don't mind or anything. I'm not trying to weird you out,"

"Seriously? Do you like. . . have a boyfriend or something?"

"And a girlfriend," Sora said, smiling again. Roxas would have probably needed to take a moment to scrape his chin off of the floor if the idea that his lame cousin was getting more action than he was didn't spurn so many questions.

"You have. . . how di-- AND a girlfriend?" Roxas stuttered, leaning over to take a drink of water.

"They're both fine with it. They like each other too. . . it's kind of nice!" Sora said, beaming again and kicking his feet. Roxas made a mental note to liquify some ritalin and shoot it into his arm when the little freak was asleep. "When I'm gone I don't have to worry too much becuase they take care of each other!"

Roxas groaned, leaning back again. Sora stood up and popped his neck.

"So you like Axel?" he said queitly, in a voice that made Roxas realize that this was his cousin, not just some weird freak with stupid hair.

"It's nothing," Roxas said, sighing and running his hand through his hair.

"Nothing. . . " Sora repeated the word absently before something clicked. "Do you feel like we forgot something?" It took a moment for Roxas to realize what he was talking about befre--

"Aerith." he said in a very final way, casting a worried look at Sora, who, rather than looking upset, just jumped into the air.

"Yay! We get to for another walk!"

Roxas groaned. So much for his cousin being human. Christ on a cracker, Roxas got along better with the garden hose.

-----

"I am so. fucking. screwed." Zexion groaned, his face burried in his arms. His words came out in a very muffled, very angry manner. It was a bad combination, Lexeaus decided.

"Did you see which way she went?" Lexeaus offered. "We can go try and find her, you know."

It happened really quickly-- first that blonde kid darted out after seeing Demyx and Axel, followed by the brown haired kid, and-- lost in the confusion like when you see those things on the discovery channel where on of the gazelle starts running because one in the heard lions coming? And the others don't really argue, because they're freaking gazelle? That's what it reminded Lexeaus of. Yuffie just kind of ran out the door for the sake of running. Zexion seemed to read his friends mind and groaned again. He thought for a moment.

"Is your Mom home? Maybe she just got confused and ran home," he offered. Zexion sighed, finally lifting his head up, glasses crooked.

"That's the last place she'd run. She's probably halfway across town stealing cucumbers from Big Mart or. . . " Zexion sighed again. "I'm screwed," he absently looked at Lexeaus with a rather desprate look on his face. "Look me in the eye. Remember what I look like-- for I am soon not to walk this earth,"

Lexeaus rolled his eyes and fixed his friends glasses. "Your Mum isn't that unreasonable. You'll just be confined to your house for a week-- like you GO anywhere -- and probably forbidden to update your livejournal. You'll survive." Lexeaus said, standing up and pushing his chair in. "Come on." he added in a very final manner.

Zexion eyed him down in a very don't-drag-livejournal-into-this manner before reluctantly standing up, realizing he was probably right.

The two got up and left, paying little attention the girl behind the counter who was still diligantly playing a game of tetris. However, now someone else was watching her.

"Er. Can i help you?" she said, looking up wearily. Aerith blinked and smiled.

"Oh, no thank you." she said airily, watching the girls thumbs.

She cocked her eyebrow. "Nothing at all? Do you uh--" Oh, shit. What did they sell here? "Uh. Caffine water?"

"I love water," Aerith replied, cocking her head to the left. The girl shrugged and un-paused her tetris game.

"What is it you're doing," Aerith said, more of a statement than a question. Rather than giving her the traditional confused look, Coffee girls face lit up. Oh boy, an excuse to explain tetris!

She waved at Aerith, signifying her to come to the othe side of the counter ["Oh my. There are so many flavors of coffee syrup. I should start collecting them." and promptly held out the cell phone. She quickly began explaining how tetris worked, Aerith looking absent the entire time, but nodding every time she finished a sentence.

"And I have the HIGHEST score of anyone I know." she finished, an acomplished look crossing her face, using her free hand to place on her hip-- attempting to look rather triumphant. Aerith smiled.

"I'm glad you think it's fun,"

"You're. . . glad?"

"It sure makes you happy," she said, looking at some of the cup of pens on the counter.

"Do you uh. Have a cell phone?" she asked. Aerith though-- oh, that thing her Mom made her carry around incase she got lost inside pottery barn again. She took it out of her pocket and handed it over. The girl punched in several things with amazing speed before handing it back.

"There. I put tetris as a shortcut and added my phone number. Call me sometime," she said, grinning.

Aerith flipped open the 'contacts' menu-- the only number there besides 'brother' and 'parents' was 'Tifa'.

"Tifa," Aerith said, blinking a few times. She looked up and smiled at her. "I'm Aerith. I like water."

Tifa laughed. "I noticed."

Just then the door opened-- Roxas and Sora entering in all of their paniced gloy. "Aries!" Sora yelled happily, throwing his arms up and glancing at Tifa.

"I. . . I'm really sorry about her-- was she-"

"Nah little dude, she's cool," Tifa said, waving it off. Sora nodded and waved Aerith out the door.

"Hold on a sec," Roxas said pulling his phone out of his pocket, which was playing some random screamo song-- the caller id flashed an awkward little picture of Axel. Roxas swallowed hard.

Sora nodded. "Pick it up, dude."


	12. Chapter 12

I really love writing this story, and I'm glad everyone encouraged me to continue. . . but it took me a while to remember I started this because **I **wanted to. Not for ~fame~ within the KH fanbase, not for the reviews (which are nice, don't get me wrong 3) but because I love these characters. Thank you all for the support.

* * *

Three o'clock in the afternoon, two hours in Lexeaus' truck, an hour on foot; about half of the town covered and to no avail. Lexeaus was fueled on the black coffee Zexion has ordered and the thrill that he got out of hanging out with his grandma under the pretense that his best friend was having a nervous break down. The larger of the two suggested, yet again, Yuffie probably just ran home and Zexion finally caved and agreed.

Lexeaus shifted the ancient knob in the middle of the truck making the gears shift as Zexion frantically pounded the speed dial for Yuffie again.

"You've tried calling her seventeen-"

"Ten." Zexion snapped, not looking at his friend and holding the phone away from his ear while Yuffie's Micheal Jackson ringback tone played for the tenth time.

"Ten times, dude. She's not going to pick up. Call home."

Zexion groaned and slid his phone shut. He didn't care if it made him look girly, he goddamn loved his chocolate. He slid it back into his jeans, a tight fit considering the tiny nature of them and leaned his head on the window. The rattling of the old pick up was lulling him off.

"I'm going to die."

"You're going to be grounded for a week." Lexeaus corrected, shifting the gear down again to turn into Zexion's sub division. "Calm down."

Zexion sighed. "You're right." He closed his eyes and let the slow movement of the truck relax him. "I don't know what I'd do without you. Thanks."

Lexeaus smiled.

* * *

Axel was in one of the most awkward positions he'd been in since bible camp.

He was sitting on Demyx-- who was face down on his floor, Axel's hand on the back of his head; giving him enough room to breath but not enough that his yelling fit of "THIS IS UNFAIR" could be heard.

"I'm so sorry, Roxas." he pleaded. "I'm so so so so sorry." he closed his eyes and shut his mouth, waiting for a reply. He was almost expecting "NO AXEL. I'M DONE WITH YOUR HOMO SHENANIGANS AND I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN." Then Axel would have to get a mariachi band and play "Baby Come Back" on Roxas' lawn.

Demyx wailed into the carpet again about how unfair this was, and how he could pound on anyone he wanted to. Axel covered the receiver to the phone and muttered "Pound on Marluxia's ass, you queer." and eagerly awaited a response.

Roxas flinched. Not only was Axel talking to him-- over the phone-- he was begging for forgiveness for his friend almost pummeling him. Woah. Big day.

Sora was laying on his stomach with his feet kicking in the air like a thirteen year old girl thinking about Seth Jonas, or whatever his name was. Roxas barfed a little in his mouth watching his cousin giggling and rolled his eyes.

"It's not a problem. Demyx and I just don't get along." he said very confidently. He wasn't' about to be the douche in this situation, the gooey melt in your mouth weenie boy he'd been around Axel since they first started talking. So your friend wants to maim me, whatever. Like I care.

"Oh, good. We grabbed coffee and went back to my place" Axel said with an obvious sigh of relief. It sounded like Demyx was crying in the background. "So. . . do you know those people?"

Oh, great. The apology and awkward "SORRY WE TOOK OFF RUNNING" part was down, now he had to explain himself. "My cousins and their friend."

"Yuffie? That's my friend's little sister. That explains why he had to show up." Axel said, more talking to himself than anything.

"Yeah." Roxas said awkwardly.

"Do you wanna hang out?" Axel blurted, suddenly. "I mean, everyone. You don't have to ditch your cousins and I'm still hanging out with Demyx. We might drag Zexion along or something." Axel offered. He haden't hung out with a group of people in a while. Hey, the change might be nice.

Roxas flinched. He almost said that there was nothing he'd rather do than ditch his cousins, but, Sora was about half an inch away from his face listening to the conversation and, unfortunately, Sora was growing on him. Not literally though. . . SORA BEANS! Now available sprouting out of ROXAS' HEAD!

"Get a pen. I'll give you directions. Bring whoever."

Roxas swooned, stealing a pen out of the pen cup at the coffee bar.

* * *

"When does the coffee shop close?" Aerith asked, cocking her head slightly to the side. Tifa flinched as one of the bars navigated in the wrong direction and she lost the game of tetris. Level 12 wasn't good enough for her, anymore.

"Three thirty." Tifa said, flipping her phone shut. She was shaking a little. Shots of espresso and that game really didn't mix well.

"That's an awkward number." Aerith said, looking genuinely concerned.

"I know, right?" Tifa laughed. Aerith laughed to, just because she was supposed to. "The lady that owns it is crazy."

"Is she?"

"She's my Aunt." Tifa threw on, and laughed again. Aerith smiled; not because she was supposed to, just because she was happy Tifa was laughing. "Three is her favorite number."

"Mine is seven." Aerith replied. Usually whoever was talking to her would give her a weird look and politley laugh incase she was joking, but Tifa, honest to god, laughed.

"You are so awesome, you know that?" Tifa said, poking Aerith in between the eyebrows.

Aerith smiled again.

* * *

Lexeaus opened the front door and Zexion feebly stepped in behind him.

Yuffie was sitting on the couch in a. . . yellow vest.

"Yuffie thank GOD!" Zexion yelled, ignoring all his needed emotional walls to throw his arms around his sister, who didn't notice.

"I got a job!" she said, not looking up from the game. "When you left I took off running and--"

"She ended up at _Cheese Barn._" A third voice snarled. A female voice. That wasn't Lexeaus'.

". . . hey Mom." Zexion said, peeling himself off the couch and shuffled over in front of his mother.

What took place next was painful to watch. Lexeaus had hung out with Zexion for years, and knew that the kid had the tendency to be kind of depressing and sad but the look on his face grew gloomier and sadder by the second as him Mom grilled him about what it meant to have responsibilities and take care of your own flesh and blood.

Even sadder, several times Zexion attempted feebly mentioning that Yuffie _took off running _and there wasn't a lot he could do, only to be overlapped by other seventy decibel falcon screeches erupting from the womans mouth.

Finally, it came to and end. Or at least it was starting to; the final rung of the speech had begun. "Hope you've learned a lesson" and "I expect better in the future" kept coming up, and Zexion was praying for his punishment to just come swiftly.

"That is why you're going out with your sister again." she finished, turning her back and heading off to the kitchen. "Half an hour. If you loose her again, you're only allowed in your room to sleep-- the rest of the year you will be on your hands and knees scrubbing the house down every damn day, you hear me?"

Zexion flinched. That was a lot worse than he thought. . . reverse grounding. He never really minded being confined to his room, after all. That seemed to easy.

"Fine. Whatever." Zexion grumbled. He sat down on the couch next to Yuffie and sighed. "So, you got a job?"

"Uh-huh." She said, unblinkingly playing the video game in front of her. "I ran to cheese barn to hang out and steal a couple wheels of cheddar--"

"What would you do with--"

"And the manager seemed impressed I was so passionate about cheese. So I get to hand out samples on the weekends."

"That's going to be awesome when he finds out your a bleeding clepto."

"Yeah, I can't remember." Yuffie replied, obviously ignoring him. "

"Where am I following you later?" Zexion said, too exhausted to even complain about it.

"Some kid named Axel's house. He's a friend of Sora's cousin Roxas." she thought for a moment. "That was a lot of 'x's."

"Hngh. Wanna come?" Zexion asked, perking his head back at Lexeaus, who was sitting on a rocking chair watching Yuffie play "Speedy the Porcupine".

"Sure. I've got nowhere to be."

* * *

Roxas was festering. Sitting cross legged on his bed, festering. On the floor (where Sora had made a makeshift bed with extra blankets and an air mattress, to his mother's insist) Sora was on the phone with his girlfriend. . . or his boyfriend. Roxas wasn't sure which one, but he was reciting the day's events.

"Yeah, awesome huh? Hey, put Riku on the phone."

Roxas flinched. Wasn't he that dick of a lacrosse player? Come to think of it, he hadn't heard much about him in the past year. Maybe he moved. Hmm.

"Kay! Love you both too! Haha! Bye!" Sora said, clicking his phone shut and sighing contently.

Roxas was mad at his cousin again. Not in a "wow you're a moron." sort of way like before. In a sinking, depressed, lonely sort of way. He let himself fester for a while longer.

"This isn't a house." Lexeaus said, putting his car in park. The directions Axel had sent to Zexion led to an abandoned lot on the outskirts of town by the train tracks and an old slaughter house. Creepy.

"There's Axel," Zexion said, squiting behind his glasses at the red headed figure at the edge of the field who was doing something with a pipe halfway sticking out of the ground. A blonde, who had obviously gotten his mo hawk to stick back up waved at the vehicle.

Even Yuffie looked confused. Zexion was a little relieved. Nothing to steal here.

The three got out of the rickety truck (Zexion shut the door with a bit of a slam, worried the entire car was going to fall apart) and made their way over, padding in the dusty field to get to them.

"What's up?" Zexion said, waving his hair out of his face.

Axel gestured to the pile of brightly colored orbs at feet, all filled with water.

"I was pretty excited that this old pump works," he said, pointing at Demyx and the water spout.

Yuffie whooped and Zexion rolled his eyes. "I'll sit this one out."

"No, you're not." Demyx said, wagging his finger at him (letting a finger off the water balloon he was holding in place, which squirted him in the eye).

"Water balloon fight, huh?" Sora said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Awesome!"

Roxas had to run to catch up with him, panting after dashing across the field. "Thanks for waiting for me, dick."

"No problem!" Sora said, grinning at his cousin.

Aerith and another figure were still coming across the field.

"How exactly are we doing this?" Zexion asked, his bliss at his easy punishment dying in a millisecond. This was worse than any punishment he could imagine; he would have rather been at home scrubbing the undersides of the carpet.

"Teams. Last person standing wins. You get hit, you're down." Axel said, spinning a green balloon in the air.

Aerith and . . . . the coffee girl finally arrived at the scene.

"Uh. Hey. Coffee barista." Axel said, cocking his head. "The more the merrier, I mean."

"I invited her," Aerith said, smiling her airy weird smile.

Axel began counting on his fingers. "There's eight of us. Two teams."

After a moment of shuffling, they seperated into; Sora, Aerieth, Tifa and Yuffie against Roxas, Demyx, Lexeaus and Zexion.

"You guys can be the nobodies, because you're LOSERS!" Yuffie taunted from the oposite side of the field.

Axel rolled his eyes and laughed, followed by "A FREE FOR ALL IN THREE, TWO, ONE--"

They were off. Axel threw the first balloon, hitting Sora in the face. Aerith, confused, threw one at Lexeaus, who actually _caught _it, and threw it, _and _the one he was holding, hitting both Aerith and Tifa. Tifa laughed.

Yuffie was the only one to put up a real fight; only because she was fast. Demyx and Roxas chased her around for a moment, only to have Zexion sneak up and break a blue balloon over his little sisters head.

"BOO YA!" he yelled, his glassed falling off into the dirt. "BOOM, BITCH. THAT'S HOW WE DO IT IN MY HOUSE." he continued, doing a little dance.

Lexeaus rolled his eyes and picked up the discarded eye wear, wiped it off and handed them back.

It was a lot more fun than Axel thought it would be. He got the idea from his Mom, who did it with a kid's day camp she helped run in the summer, and thought most of them had the mentality of kids, so it would be fun for at least a while.

The first, second and third round was easily taken by 'the nobodies', who only had trouble with Yuffie. In between the third and fourth, 'the somebodies' huddled up and discussed tactics while Demyx filled up more balloons. Somebodies _almost _had the fourth, apart from Lexeaus who took the remaining three down within a matter of seconds. They only one the fifth because Lex felt left out, having not been hit yet.

After another two wins from the Nobodies, it was getting dark and everyone, drenched in freezing water, was getting cold in the cool spring evening.

"I'll uh. See you at school tomorrow I guess." Axel said. This didn't work the way he planned. He was hoping to at least distract everyone long enough to talk to Roxas alone.

Aerith and Sora were padding back to the minivan Roxas had managed to talk his Mom into borrowing, Tifa back to her motorcycle (a chick with a motorcycle, that was pretty goddamn cool, he had to admit) and the others back to Lexeaus' truck. Demyx was waiting for him. So much for privacy.

"Yeah, tomorrow." Roxas murmered. Out of complete impulse, he hugged the taller boy around the middle. Very quick, breif, and not gay. It could have been a bro hug, honestly.

Axel smiled and ruffled the smaller boy's hair. Two days ago he didn't know the kid and thought he would hate him.

Roxas began off before turning around and smiling. "Do you feel like this weekend took a couple of years to get through?"

"Yeah, Rox. I do."


End file.
